(From right) Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman, Union coal secretary H.C. Gupta and Coal India chairman P.S. Bhattacharya in Calcutta on Thursday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, Jan. 17: Coal India Limited may consider a public offering of its equity after it gets navratna status.

Union coal secretary H.C. Gupta said Coal India chairman Partha S. Bhattacharya would present the company’s case before a screening committee comprising secretaries of different ministries of the central government.

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the inaugural ceremony of the five-day Asian Mining Congress here today.

Coal India has recently got miniratna status. A company should be a miniratna for three years before it could become a navratna.

It is understood that Coal India will seek a waiver of the three-year clause. However, it must have at least seven independent directors on its board to become a navratna. In compliance with its miniratna status, the public sector unit has four independent directors on its board at present. “We may consider the IPO issue after we get navratna status, but not now,” Bhattacharya said.

Gupta said, “After the screening committee approves Coal India’s claim for navratna status, the proposal will go to the cabinet secretary for final approval and then it’s only a matter of formal notification.”

He said the coal ministry had received a few requests from companies, including Reliance Industries and the Tata-Sasol combine, for an allotment of blocks for coal liquefaction, a process of making oil from coal.

The companies want to produce 60,000-70,000 barrels of oil a day and for this they need 25 million tonnes (mt) to 30mt of coal. “This, in other words, means that each company will require a coal block that has at least 1 billion tonnes of coal in reserve,” Gupta said.

He said Coal Mines Planning & Design India Limited has been assigned the job of identifying such huge coal blocks for the liquefaction projects.